Work Text:
Krista is forty minutes into her next session when Brittany, the receptionist, shouts, “You can’t go in there!”
Half a second later, someone is pounding on her door, hard and fast.
Aritra looks between Krista and the door, her pale brown eyes wide, frightened. Krista does her best to school her expression into something calm, serene, and hopes that whoever is on the opposite side of her door hasn’t undone weeks of drawing the young agoraphobic woman out of her home. “Excuse me for one second.”
Krista sets aside her notes and walks to the door, her shoulders relaxed, her pace unhurried. She cracks the door open, careful to keep her patient shielded from view.
The hooded man on the other side of the door flinches back, turning to hide his face from view.
“Eliot?”
Eliot shuffles from foot to foot, but still he doesn’t look at her. “Need your help, Doc.”
His voice is familiar, but something about it, the affected carelessness of it, perhaps, combined with the uncharacteristic restlessness, tells Krista this is not the patient she met with just an hour earlier. Another alter, but which one?
“I’m with a patient right now. Is this an emergency?”
The alter turns, throwing their hands up into the air. They pace to the end of the short hallway before coming back, hands shoved into the pockets of their jeans. “Guess not. Show myself out.”
“Give me ten minutes,” she says. “I can squeeze you in during lunch.”
“Great,” the alter says. Or grumbles, almost as if they would rather Krista had kicked them out. “Great. Thanks.”
Krista slowly closes the door and returns to her seat. “I apologize about that. Where were we?”
Krista sees Aritra to the receptionist with a smile and a reminder that she’ll see her at the same time the next week. Neither Eliot nor the alter are sitting in the small reception area.
When Brittany sees her looking, the receptionist scrunches her nose. “He lit a cigarette and when I told him he couldn’t smoke in here, he cursed a bunch and left. Oh, and your one o’clock cancelled, so your afternoon is wide open.”
Krista thanks the woman and goes to the little break room to heat up her lunch. She balances the tray along with her fourth cup of coffee of the day and returns to her office.
A hooded figure sits slouched on the overstuffed sofa.
Krista clamps down on the scream that claws its way up her throat and forces herself to relax. “Hello.”
The alter gives a careless two-fingered wave, but keeps their hood pulled low over their face, staring anywhere but at Krista.
“Have we met?”
“‘Course we’ve fuckin’ met.”
All at once, she knows exactly who is sitting on her sofa. “Mr. Robot.”
“In the—” He cuts himself off. “Huh.”
“What?”
“I guess when they say ‘in the flesh’ they never actually specify whose flesh it actually is.”
Krista sits down at her desk, arranging her lunch and coffee out before her. She peels the plastic film back from her microwave spaghetti and meatballs and steam swirls as it rises toward the ceiling. “What can I help you with, Mr. Robot?”
For a long time, Mr. Robot doesn’t answer. He goes uncharacteristically still. Krista takes two bites of her scalding hot pasta before Mr. Robot pulls the hood back from his face.
Tears fall in slow, gluey tracks down his pale face. “Make it stop.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” Krista asks. She knows the answer. Eliot, the host, was upset after their last session, understandably so given the last year of his life, but she wants to hear it from Mr. Robot.
“I don’t fuckin’ know. We let go, alright? Things were supposed to be better, Eliot back at the wheel, I don’t know—fuckin’ whole or some poetic shit. Then I wake up on the goddamn train wailing like a fuckin’ two year old and I can’t get the waterworks to shut the fuck off and I need you to help me fix it, all of it, so I can go the fuck back to sleep.”
Krista takes a moment to digest, both figuratively and literally, before pushing her lunch away. She takes a sip of her coffee. “You want to go back to sleep?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Doc. I love stretching my legs as much as the next guy, but—newsflash!—my job is done.”
“And why do you think your job is done?”
“Hello? Have you been paying attention? And you call yourself a shrink.”
Mr. Robot pantomimes removing a pair of glasses, folding the arms, and placing the imaginary object into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie. He swipes at his eyes with his forearm only for more tears to fall. “Y’know what? This was a mistake. I’m outta here.”
“Mr. Robot,” Krista says, voice even, but firm. “Please sit down. You asked for my help; this is how it works.”
He freezes, mid-stride. He takes in a deep, hiccuping breath before falling back into the cushions of the sofa. He spreads his legs wide and settles his arms along the back of the sofa, the very picture of relaxation and comfort. Except, of course, for the tears staining his cheeks and the bright, irritated red of his eyes.
“Thank you,” Krista says, and Mr. Robot shifts, uncomfortable, but trying not to show it. “Why do you think your job is done?”
Mr. Robot glares. “Kid knows everything now. Mastermind did his thing, saved the world. I kept them safe. End of story.”
“Do you like to read, Mr. Robot?”
Mr. Robot gives her an unpleasant smile. “Told you I’m shrink-proof. Remember?”
Krista smiles. “Humor me.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I like to read. Classics, mostly. Cereal boxes. Penthouse articles.”
Krista ignores the last item, clearly tossed in to get a rise out of her. “So you would agree that stories generally have a beginning, a middle, and an end?”
“The fuck kind of question is that?”
“Answer it, please.”
Mr. Robot swipes at his eyes again, then answers with a sneer. “Any high school dropout could tell you that.”
“What makes you think you were at the end of your story? And not the beginning or the middle?”
Mr. Robot sniffles, not meeting her eyes. “Just was, alright?”
Krista tilts her head. “Why?”
“For fucks’ sake! Because he doesn’t need me anymore. Is that what you want to hear?”
“So it made narrative sense to you that without a purpose your story, your life, would be over?”
“Jesus Christ,” Mr. Robot dashes at freshly fallen tears with the heels of his hands. “Narrative sense. Narrative sense. How about common fucking sense?”
“I can see why you might think that,” Krista says. “I also think you’re smart enough to realize the flaw in that logic.”
Rummaging in his pockets, Mr. Robot retrieves a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Tapping one into his hand, he places it between his lips, but he doesn’t light it. “Isn’t that what I pay you for?”
Krista smiles and leans back in her chair, waiting.
“Fuck. God, alright. Jesus. People aren’t stories. They don’t need a purpose to live, or whatever. But I’m not people. I’m a goddamn slice of the goddamn pie that is Eliot Alderson. I look like his piece of shit father, but I’m not him and I never was.”
“And how does that make you feel?” Krista asks, partly because it’s important for him to know and acknowledge his feelings and partly because she knows how much it will annoy him.
Mr. Robot twitches, expression twisted like he can’t decide whether he wants to laugh or wring her neck. In the end, he does neither, pushing himself off of the sofa to wander over to one of the many bookshelves lining the walls. The line of his shoulders is tight as he plucks a book at random and flips through it.
“Mr. Robot?”
“I’m the crazy one, remember? The psychopath? If someone dared me to jump off a bridge, I’d do it, just to prove something.”
It sounds like something he’s repeating back, but whether it’s something he’s heard from somebody else or something he’s trying to convince himself of, Krista doesn’t know.
She hums, neither agreeing or disagreeing. Her fingers itch to take notes, but she knows as soon as she reaches for her pen, Mr. Robot will bolt. “Do you feel like you have something to prove?”
The book closes with a snap. Mr. Robot wedges it onto the wrong shelf and turns, leaning his back against the shelf and crossing his arms, cigarette still dangling from his lips. “Doesn’t everybody?”
“Do you feel as if you need to prove just how quote-unquote crazy you are?” Krista asks. She doesn’t ask, ‘Perhaps to show just how unalike Eliot’s father you are?’
Mr. Robot glares. He kicks off from the shelf and flops onto his back on the sofa, the cushions groaning at the abuse. He takes the cigarette from his mouth and crushes it in his fist, dropping the ruined remains onto the carpet before tucking his arm beneath his head. One leg hangs over the edge and Mr. Robot kicks it back and forth as he stares up at the ceiling, tears falling into the worn cotton of his hoodie. “Why can’t I make him stop?”
Lunch gone cold, Krista tosses it into the trash and abandons her desk for the chair sitting kitty corner to the sofa. She crosses her legs and adjusts her skirt. “Make who stop what?”
Mr. Robot gestures at his face. “Whoever the fuck is responsible for this. And this. Fuck, and I thought shrinks were supposed to be able to intuit shit or whatever.”
“Why do you think someone else is responsible?”
“Trust me, this isn’t me.”
Krista leans forward, trying to keep her expression from becoming too eager. “But what makes you so certain it isn’t?”
Mr. Robot frowns, fresh tears spilling. “I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to fucking work, so you can forget about it.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?”
Mr. Robot rolls his head to glare at her more fully. “You’re trying to trick me. It won’t work.”
Krista shakes her head. “I’m not trying to trick you, Mr. Robot. We’re just talking. But the only way I’m going to be able to help you is if you’re honest with me—honest with yourself. Tell me, what do you think will happen if you admit how you’re feeling right now, no bullshit, no lies, no clever quips or deflection?”
He gives a watery smile. “You think my quips are clever?”
Krista waits.
Mr. Robot’s foot stills. His breath hitches around a quiet sob. “Which question do you want me to answer? What do I think will happen or how I’m feeling?”
“I’ll leave it up to you.”
For a long time, the only sound is the tick tick tick of Krista’s wristwatch and the soft white noise coming from the speaker by the door, meant to keep others from listening in on patient sessions.
“I’m supposed to be the strong one. He—they—rely on me. Can’t be falling apart or what’s my goddamn point?”
“You keep coming back to that. Your point. Your purpose.”
“Because I don’t fucking know anything else!” Mr. Robot explodes upright, head gripped between clawed hands.
“You believed that you had fulfilled your purpose, but here you are. Why do you think that is?”
“He—Eliot—he was crying. He—he needed me.”
“Do you think it could have been more than that?”
Mr. Robot drags in an unsteady breath. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been with him for almost as long as he can remember, but when he woke up, you were gone. Do you think, perhaps, even if he didn’t need you, Eliot wasn’t ready to let you go? That maybe he missed you?”
Mr. Robot crumples. There’s no other word for it. Like a puppet with its strings cut, or a high-rise after the detonation of strategically placed charges, he collapses into himself. His rounded shoulders shake and he makes a sound like a wounded animal. He covers his face with his hands, desperate to keep it all in, as if he can push it all back inside of himself, sobbing all the harder for his efforts.
Krista slips from her chair to kneel beside the sofa. If he were anyone else she would put her hand on his shoulder, an offering of support. But Eliot and the Mastermind have both confessed to being uncomfortable with physical contact and the last thing she wants is to send Mr. Robot running. Instead, she leans over to the small, round table beside the sofa and plucks a tissue from the box. She holds it out to him, unsure whether he’ll take it or tear it to pieces.
He grabs her wrist instead of the tissue, holding fast and firm, but not hard enough to hurt, so Krista allows it. His chest heaves and he chokes back another sob. “H-help me. I can’t. I can’t. Please. Please, help me. Make it stop.”
“You can,” Krista says, voice soft, but emphatic. “You can. I know it hurts. I know it’s unpleasant. But you have to stop fighting it. That’s the only way it will stop.”
Mr. Robot shakes his head, but he doesn’t let go of her hand. “That doesn’t—that doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“Emotion is complicated. You’re the protector, but you’re also the trauma holder, aren’t you? And trauma doesn’t just go away by believing you’re the strong one, or the crazy one, or the father figure. You have to feel it, process it, in order to heal.”
He looks at her like a man drowning, eyes wide, overfull with the tears rolling down his angular face. He sucks in air in short, shallow little pants and Krista covers his hand on her wrist with her own. “Breathe. It’s alright. You’re safe here. It’s just you and me. Just breathe, in and out, that’s it.”
He takes several shuddering breaths and wipes ineffectually at his face. “How? How can he miss me after everything I did?”
“You feel guilty?”
Mr. Robot pulls his hand away, cradling it against his stomach. He swallows wetly. “When the Mastermind took over, I agreed. Something needed to be done to protect Eliot, to make the world safe for him. Something big. But then the Mastermind got cold feet and it was up to me to make sure we did what had to be done, even if it made me the villain. I was at war with the Mastermind and all’s fair, you know how it goes.”
“You hurt him.” It isn’t a question.
“Mind, body...soul.”
Krista lets that hang in the air for a moment. “You’re here now. Why don’t you try talking to him?”
Mr. Robot shakes his head. “Kid’s not here right now. It’s just me.”
“What if you tried writing him a letter?”
Mr. Robot scoffs, but there’s none of his usual bite in it. “Dear Eliot. I’m sorry I’ve been a huge bag of dicks. Hope you can forgive me. Love, Mr. Robot.”
“That’s a start,” Krista says. “It feels silly at first, I know, but you’re clever. I think once you start you’ll know exactly what you need to say.”
Krista stands, her knees aching. She goes to her desk, Mr. Robot’s eyes burning the back of her head. She pulls a stack of paper from the printer and a pen from the holder and holds both out to Mr. Robot.
Mr. Robot sniffles, but takes the items from her, staring at them like they are foriegn concepts to him.
Krista sits at her desk and opens her laptop. She makes a show of checking her email, of finalizing patient notes, and sending scripts to the appropriate pharmacies. While she works, the office fills with the sound of a ballpoint scratching against cheap, bleached printer paper.
More than once, Mr. Robot crumples the page he is working on and tosses it to land nowhere near the trash bin beside Krista’s desk, but he taps the pen against his lips and starts anew.
An hour passes, taking the day almost to its conclusion, before Mr. Robot makes a satisfied noise and looks up from his work.
The tears have stopped.
“Done?” Krista asks.
“Yeah.” His voice is quiet, earnest and raw, in a way that reminds Krista of Eliot.
“That’s good. You did very well, Mr. Robot,” she says. She does not say, ‘Not so shrink-proof, are you?’
The corners of Mr. Robot’s lips turn up, almost as if he can hear her anyway. “I, uh. Thanks. For helping.”
Krista smiles. “I hope to see more of you, Mr. Robot. For as long as you and Eliot need me.”
Mr. Robot ducks his head. He pantomimes removing a cap and runs a hand through his hair. He replaces the cap and flashes her a weak, yet sincere, smile. “Yeah. Okay. I’m just gonna, uh, get outta your hair.”
He leaves with none of the frantic energy he arrived with, hands in his pockets, head bowed to stare at his sneakers. The door closes softly behind him.
Krista sits back in her chair, hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion. She gives herself the count of five to process everything before pulling up Eliot’s notes. Under the section for Mr. Robot, she types out several lines before saving and closing the program. She shuts her laptop with a decisive click and places it into her bag.
A bath, she thinks as she turns off the lights in her office. A glass of wine, perhaps. And, maybe, a good cry.